Blends the personal testimony of Holocaust survivor, Jack Mandelbaum, with the history of his time, documented by photos from the archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. What was the secret to surviving the death camps? How did you keep from dying of heartbreak in a place of broken hearts and broken bodies? "Think of it as a game, Jack," an older prisoner tells him. "Play the game right and you might outlast the Nazis." Caught up in Hitler's Final Solution to annihilate Europe's Jews, fifteen-year-old Jack is torn from his family and thrown into the nightmarish world of the concentration camps. Despite intolerable conditions, Jack resolves not to hate his captors, and vows to see his family again. He forges friendships with other prisoners, and together they struggle to make it one more hour, one more day. But even with his strong will to live, can Jack survive the life-and-death game he is forced to play with his Nazi captors? Award-winning author Andrea Warren has crafted an unforgettable true a story of courage, friendship, family love, and a boy becoming a man in the shadow of the Third Reich

アンドレア・ウォレンが描く本作の真髄は、ホロコーストという極限下で少年ジャックが「生存をゲームと捉える」という驚異的な心理的防衛策を見出す点にあります。この比喩は単なる現実逃避ではなく、絶望の中で尊厳と正気を保つための崇高な知恵として機能しています。著者は膨大な記録と個人の証言を鮮やかに織り交ぜ、読者の魂を揺さぶる精神的成長譚へと昇華させています。 特筆すべきは、憎しみを拒絶するジャックの強靭な意志と、仲間との絆が生み出す圧倒的な人間愛です。悲劇の記録を超え、極限の闇の中でも消えない「人間性の輝き」を克明に描き出した筆致は、読む者に生きる勇気を与えます。過酷な運命に抗うための普遍的な道標として、世代を超えて読み継がれるべき力強さに満ちた一冊です。